Sustainable Restaurant Plan And Consultancy For The Bodhi

In a fast-paced world, Americans enjoy restaurants as a convenient, time-saving alternative to cooking at home. Restaurants also serve as spaces for people to take a break from their hectic schedules and enjoy food in a comfortable environment. While restaurants provide an important value to American society, they also contribute greatly to global sustainability problems. In general, fast-food and fast-casual establishments in the US perpetuate plastic pollution, diet-related health problems, food waste, greenhouse gas emissions, and unsustainable agricultural practices. Health food restaurants typically cater to wealthier demographics, resulting in an accessibility issue for people of lower-income levels. Restaurant owners that have the desire to make their operations more sustainable often times lack the tools needed to taking those first steps. Seeing these challenges as opportunities, I’ve partnered up with The Bodhi, a nutrition-focused fast-casual restaurant in Tempe, to create a 5-year sustainable business plan and consult them in their journey to sustainability. This plan is designed to maintain The Bodhi’s mission of promoting personal wellness while synergistically incorporating and influencing environmental/social stewardship. The findings of this project are informed by an analysis of existing sustainable restaurant frameworks, an energy and waste stream audit of the Bodhi, and a market analysis. Based on these findings, I have made recommendations that can be applied to The Bodhi’s current and future locations. This project has shown that sustainability can be made possible in restaurants, but there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution. What matters in the cases of all successful sustainable restaurants is that all levels of employees are engaged and have a stake in the process. To create organizational change, stakeholders must share a clear vision for the desired future and create a comprehensive strategy to turn aspiration into a reality.